Q. My son is pressing me to buy him a sax. Saxophones are expensive and I want to know that he is serious before I buy him one.

The Lyons C Clarinet is the perfect sax trainer, musically and cost wise. The clarinet and saxophone are very closely related. The average time to reach the same standard on a sax, having played the clarinet for 3 or 4 years, is about two weeks.

Buy him a considerably cheaper Lyons C Clarinet. If he makes a go of that then he has proved himself. (He will be glad he started on clarinet; it is much harder for a sax player to learn the clarinet than the other way around.)